Sunday, October 5, 2014

Clark Terry: The Ellington Years And Beyond (1952-60)

Clark Terry. Photo courtesy of Riverside

"Nobody ever says a bad word about Clark Terry." -- Richard Cook

I just saw the documentary Keep On Keepin' On (2014), about Clark Terry and his messianic belief in jazz education, thus I'm in the mood for nothing but CT. (Hopefully, soon I will be writing a note on the film for this blog.) Here, what I've got to offer is a compilation of various solos CT played during his decade-long stint with Duke Ellington and His Orchestra.

"Duke was endowed with a supernatural magic," remembers Clark Terry, "he could cuss you out and rarely use a cuss word. He'd chastise you from the piano by hitting a discord and everybody knew what was going on. A frequent utterance of his was simply 'Aaaaaahhhhh!' It might mean something like, 'You're not paying attention! You're not listening!' Or it might mean that what you played was beautiful to him."

With exception of one track, everything you'll hear is recorded live in concert, mostly with non-professional tools and less than skillful engineers. As Clark Terry would say, these tracks are surveying a life on the road: "East coast to west coast and all in between - clubs, ballrooms, and theaters. The Beehive, Blackhawk, Blue Note, DeLisa, Regal, Apollo, Trianon, Savoy, and many others."

There are various takes on How High the Moon which was Terry's solo feature throughout a good part of the 1950s. And then there is a surprisingly bop-ish arrangement of that tune from a Birdland session in November, 1952.Perdido is another tune with which Terry was featured in Ellington's band. They are by far the most exciting takes of this old tune on Ellington's recorded catalog. It's like "magic" to see how Ellington manages to bring a new musical angle to the same song played over the course of the years. For that matter, one only has to go back, or forward, to compare other interpretation of the same song and see how the master tailor is re-fitting the old suit to Clark Terry's sound and musical (or even personal) character.

The voice heard on this tape is of course of Mr David W. Niven's, giving some useful information about Terry. He is responsible for this compilation. However, be aware that not all the dates and facts given are accurate. For a more reliable discography of the sessions see below.